In recent years, new or more stringent demands have been imposed on lighting systems, such as increased requirements for energy conservation, and the need to accommodate an increasing variety of different types of lighting units, which employ different types of light sources (e.g., incandescent, fluorescent, light emitting diode, etc.) with different driving requirements, with different types of lighting units often being deployed within a same building or even the same room. These demands have driven needs for more options and flexibility in the control of the lighting units within a facility. These needs, in turn, have led to the development and installation of lighting networks within many facilities. In particular, the lighting industry has developed the Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) standard for digital communications between the individual components of a lighting system which are connected in a lighting network.
Commissioning a lighting network installed at a site or facility generally includes preparing a map or floor plan of the site or facility which indicates the network address and physical location of each network apparatus (e.g., ballast or lighting driver) of the lighting network. The map or floor plan can then be used as a reference for any future maintenance or re-commissioning process for the lighting network. However, this commissioning process can be relatively expensive for a large lighting network, for example a large DALI network, because of the considerable number of labor hours required to prepare the map or floor plan. Traditionally, there is no easy way to determine which network apparatus at what location has been assigned what network address, because the network addresses are randomly assigned by the controller to the network apparatuses. To identify or locate a particular network apparatus at an installed facility, the commissioning engineer, installer, or end user employs a controller such as a computer which has installed thereon communication software that will send messages or commands over the lighting network. The software will list out the network addresses assigned to all of the network apparatuses in the lighting network, but it cannot determine which network apparatus is located where in the facility.
To determine the location in a facility of a network apparatus corresponding to a particular network address, the engineer, installer or end user sends a particular command to that network address, and then physically moves around in the facility to observe which network apparatus at which location responds to that command. Once this is determined, the engineer, installer or end user may then note the location of the network apparatus on the site map or layout. For example, a command may be addressed to a particular network address directing the corresponding network apparatus to dim up and down the lighting unit or units which are controlled by that network apparatus so as to cause the lights to flash. The engineer, installer or end user can then move around in the facility and observe which lights are flashing and note the location of the flashing lights and the corresponding network address on the map or floor plan. This process can be very tiresome and time consuming for the engineer/installer or the end user. To avoid the back and forth movement, two persons may work together, whereby the first person sends the command to the network address, and the second person walks around the site to determine the location of the network apparatus which responds to the command. Still, a lot of time is required for this process. However, this time could be substantially reduced if each ballast/driver could signal its network address to an engineer in response to some command to identify itself.
Thus, it would be desirable to a lighting network apparatus, which may comprise a ballast or lighting driver, which is connected to a lighting network and which can identify itself and communicate or indicate its network address to an engineer, installer or end user of the lighting network. It would further be desirable to provide a method for such an apparatus to identify itself and communicate or indicate its network address to an engineer, installer or end user of the lighting network.